Chapter 58: Fictional Damon or Rich-Lady Fantasy

Damon closed his eyes.

’Of course.’

"Let me ask you something, Damon."

"No."

"You were always smart."

"Thank you? Now, goodbye."

"But are you stupid or what?"

Damon frowned. "Excuse me?"

Celeste pointed at the laptop. "That! Your little Service Path thing. It’s stupid."

His face flattened. "You saw it for about thirty seconds."

"Thirty seconds was generous." She walked back over and tapped the laptop lid with one finger. "It’s pretty, I’ll give you that. Very dark, very private, very mysterious young man who understands lonely women. You even made the whole thing simple enough that somebody could probably use it drunk in the back of an Uber. Congratulations."

Damon wasn’t sure whether he’d just been complimented.

’Apparently not.’

Celeste gave him a look somewhere between pity and secondhand embarrassment. "But it’s also the most eighteen-year-old fucking business idea I’ve seen in my life. You built the part where gorgeous frustrated rich women arrive, look at your body, trust you, click a few buttons and basically deliver themselves into your hands. That’s not a plan, Damon. That’s the opening Chapter of some horny web novel written by a guy who’s never had to sell anything. Poor author, hoping for a few gifts from your readers but they’d never give them to ya."

That one actually offended him: "Fuck you. I thought this through."

"No, you thought through the fun part." Celeste smiled. "The website, the photos, the secrecy, the application, the fucking part where you get to pleasure them with your giant cock. Basically everything that happens after the universe decides to cooperate with your dick."

Damon opened his mouth, but she was enjoying herself now.

"You even called it a Service Path. Jesus Christ. You’re one floating blue screen away from expecting neglected wives to actually spawn in front of you with quest markers over their heads."

"It’s a working concept."

"It’s a fantasy with a payment button, Damon."

Damon stared at her.

Celeste stared right back, completely unbothered. "Come on, Damon. You’re rich. You’ve grown up around the exact kind of women you’re trying to get into bed, and rock their world or whatever, which somehow makes this worse. You should know real life doesn’t work like your browser history or your OnlyFans. You made the bedroom, put silk sheets on it, turned the lights down, stocked the condoms and then apparently forgot there was supposed to be a fucking house around it."

That made his expression shift.

Celeste caught that immediately and smiled: "There. That face. Your brain finally showed up."

Damon looked at the closed MacBook, then back at her. He had been pretty fucking pleased with that site less than an hour ago. More than pleased, actually. In his head the thing had been clean, discreet, efficient and borderline brilliant. Four taps, maybe five if she was horny enough to forgive him, and everything after that handled privately.

Now Psycho Bellamy had looked at it for half a minute and was talking about it like he’d submitted a lemonade stand as his Blackwood business thesis.

That pissed him off considerably more than her stealing his password.

"You’re not that fictional, are you?" Celeste asked, and somehow the complete sincerity in her voice made it worse.

That one made him stop.

The joke had gone out of her voice, and for the first time since she’d walked into the room, Celeste looked at the website the way somebody looked at an actual business instead of a fresh source of entertainment.

Her eyes moved back to Damon, and there was something almost insulting about how fast the amusement curdled into analytical contempt.

Damon slowly looked at her. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Celeste looked at him for a second, then tapped the closed laptop twice with one finger.

"It means you built the sexy part first." His eyebrows pulled together, but she was already moving. "You made the site pretty. You made it private. You made the application simple. You thought about the service, the women, the pictures, the questions, the whole rich-lady fantasy. Great." A tiny nod, like she was crediting his homework before failing him on the exam. "And somehow you forgot the tiny little problem where none of these women have any reason to ever fucking find you."

Damon opened his mouth.

She didn’t give him the room.

"Forget that one for a second. Let’s pretend one magically does. Some gorgeous forty-two-year-old executive, husband, two kids, a townhouse, a driver, enough money to sue you into a different dimension — she lands on your website tonight. First thing she sees?"

Damon glanced toward the laptop. Celeste followed the glance with a small tilt of her head.

"A faceless eighteen-year-old with expensive photography telling her he’s discreet. Cool. Why does she believe you? Because the website says so? The black and gold? Or just because you are not showing your face? Or is it just that the anonymous teenager offering to secretly sleep with married women happens to have a nice privacy section?"

His mouth closed. Celeste nodded, almost approvingly.

"Let’s she believes some of that; how does she know you’re actually eighteen? How do you know she’s actually forty-two? How do you know the woman filling out your application is even the woman in the pictures she sends you?"

"She sees the body on your site — how does she know it’s yours and not some fitness model you lifted off Instagram? And once you’re both convinced the other one’s real, how does either of you verify anything without handing over enough identifying information to torch the whole discretion pitch you’re selling?"

Damon shifted his weight. She caught it and smiled just slightly.

"Good. We’re awake now. Say she believes you’re real. Why does she trust you enough to actually meet you?"

"Because—"

"And where."

That stopped him cold.

Celeste leaned back against the desk, arms folding: "Where are you going to meet her? Your house? Obviously not. Hers — she’s bringing an eighteen-year-old stranger into the home her husband and kids sleep in? A hotel? Whose name’s on the reservation? Who walks in first, together or separate? Front desk asks for ID — then what? Lobby camera catches your face — then what? An employee recognizes her — then what?"

His expression started tightening. Her voice stayed almost insultingly calm.

"And if she’s famous? You’re targeting high-status women you know. What does that even mean to you — rich enough to own good shoes, or actually recognizable? Because those are two completely different disasters. So enlighten me. She’s a CEO whose face was in Bloomberg last week. An actress. A politician’s wife. A billionaire’s daughter with a driver who knows every address she’s ever been to and a security team that logs where the car stops. Did any of that cross your mind, or did you skip straight to that stupid website and photo shoot?"